Sussex EPP Rolling Grant 2009

在苏塞克斯开展的这项工作支持了三个实验粒子物理项目，所有这些项目都被认为是STFC的极高优先领域。首先，我们正在竞标加入欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机的ATLAS合作项目。为此，我们的两名教员--已经是ATLAS的资深成员--将与他们的小组一起，继续他们的工作，识别ATLAS探测器内出现的所谓超对称粒子的特征，并为触发器的开发和ATLAS的升级做出贡献。其次，我们在持续寻找中子的电偶极矩(EDM)方面提供了实质性的智力领导。找到EDM将代表SM之外的物理学的明确证据；相反，没有任何EDM，在我们所瞄准的敏感度上，将对新物理模型提供极其严格的限制。这项工作还提供了与宇宙学的联系，因为任何中子EDM的大小都是由相同的破坏CP的机制决定的，这是宇宙中物质对反物质的优势所在。第三，我们有一个活跃的中微子物理计划。我们将继续长期参与MINOS项目，该项目调查中微子振荡现象(中微子从一种类型转变为另一种类型)，方法是从费米实验室向明尼苏达州北部的一个探测器发送一束穿过地球734公里的中微子。我们还计划参与SNO+，这是萨德伯里中微子天文台出现的一个令人兴奋的新项目，它有几个物理目标，如研究地球中微子，测量来自太阳的低能中微子，以及可能最重要的是，测量无中微子的双β衰变，这既可以确定中微子的质量，也可以回答中微子是否是它自己的反粒子这个长期存在的问题。

The work carried out at Sussex supports three experimental particle physics programmes, all recognised as areas of extremely high priority for STFC. First, we are bidding to join the ATLAS collaboraton at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. To this end, two of our faculty - already well established members of ATLAS - will, together with their sub-group, continue their work to identify signatures of the appearance of so-called supersymmetric particles within the ATLAS detector, as well as contributing towards the development of the trigger and the ATLAS upgrade. Second, we provide substantial intellectual leadership in the ongoing search for an electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron. Finding an EDM would represent unambiguous evidence for physics beyond the SM; conversely, the absence of any EDM, at the sensitivity for which we are aiming, would provide extremely severe constraints on models of new physics. This work also provides a link to cosmology, since the size of any neutron EDM is determined by the same CP-violating mechanism that underlies the dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. Third, we have an active programme of neutrino physics. We will maintain our long-standing involvement in the MINOS project, which investigates the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations (the transmutation of neutrinos from one type to another) by sending a beam of neutrinos 734 km through the Earth from Fermilab to a detector in northern Minnesota. We also propose to participate in SNO+, an exciting new project that has emerged from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and which has several physics goals such as the study of geoneutrinos, the measurement of low-energy neutrinos from the Sun, and, possibly most important of all, a measurement of neutrinoless double-beta decay, which could both determine the mass of the neutrino and answer the long-standing question of whether the neutrino is its own antiparticle.